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WTI Heads for Weekly Gain as Crude Stockpiles Drop

West Texas Intermediate headed for its first weekly advance in three as crude supplies shrank for the first time in more than a month in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer. Brent rose as the European Union considered expanding sanctions on Russia . Futures increased as much as 0.9 percent in New York . Crude stockpiles fell by 1.78 million barrels last week as inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma , the delivery point for WTI, slid to the lowest level since December 2008, data from the Energy Information Administration show. Ukraine renewed an offer of dialog with representatives of its eastern regions as Russia held army drills. The decline in U.S. stockpiles us “definitely supportive” for crude prices, Jens Naervig Pedersen, a commodities analyst at Danske Bank A/S, said by phone from Copenhagen. Tensions between Ukraine and Russia “will continue to be a worry in the market,” he said. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Iran Oil Minister Rejects Export Limit From Nuclear Deal

Iran will export crude oil at the maximum level possible, regardless of restrictions imposed in an interim deal that offered the country some relief from sanctions over its nuclear program, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said. Iran shipped about 1.37 million barrels a day of crude on average during the first three months of the year, according to data from the International Energy Agency . Under an interim accord aimed at curbing the country’s nuclear program in return for easing some sanctions, Iran should limit exports to an average of 1 million barrels a day in the six months through July, the U.S. said in November. “We don’t accept any figure or number that is told to us in terms of a measure for our own exports,” Zanganeh told reporters at an energy exhibition in Tehran today. “Iran will set Iran’s export level, and we will export at the maximum […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Natural-Gas Prices Tumble on Inventory Addition

Natural-gas futures posted their biggest decline in 10 weeks Thursday as storage additions eased concerns about a potential shortage of the heating fuel next winter. Prices for the front-month June contract fell 16.8 cents, or 3.5%, to $4.572 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the biggest percentage decline since Feb. 27 and put prices 5.4% below the two-month high they had hit a week ago. "It’s not a huge turn, but it’s a bloody day," said Scott Gettleman, an independent trader in New York. "Usually you get a selloff, but you bounce back a little. Today we never got a bounce." The federal government reported a larger-than-expected increase in storage inventories for a third straight week. Producers added 74 billion cubic feet of gas to storage for the week ended May 2, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That […]

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Iraqi army faces death and desertions as it struggles with Anbar offensive

Iraq’s acting defense minister looks beleaguered, his face drawn, with deep bags below his eyes from a lack of sleep. For four months, Sadoun al-Dulaimi has been operating from Anbar, the most dangerous province for U.S. soldiers during the Iraq war and one again riven by conflict. The army has dispatched 42,000 troops here in a bid to quell al-Qaeda-inspired jihadists and hostile tribesmen, whose resurgence is posing the biggest test for the Iraqi military and the country’s Shiite-led government since the withdrawal of U.S. forces 2 / years ago. The battle is filled with potential pitfalls. A government failure to regain control in Sunni-dominated Anbar would jeopardize the country’s unity. But an escalated military offensive could deepen anger among the nation’s Sunni minority, fanning the flames of sectarian war. The fight has proved tougher than expected . Hundreds of soldiers have died, and the military […]

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Egyptian Tourism’s Message to World: Come Anyway

We’ve missed you,” Egypt’s ministry of tourism says in its new advertising campaign , a plaintive plea for summer visitors from wealthy countries in the Persian Gulf. That is putting it mildly. For three years now, political turmoil has scared many travelers away from Egypt, leaving millions of people whose livelihoods depend on visitors desperate for any sign of an end to the most sustained tourism crisis anyone here can recall. At Cosmos , a 37-year-old tour company in Cairo that used to serve up to 30,000 customers a year, Khaled M. Ismail, the company’s director of operations, said he had not booked a single visitor since May 2013. The company’s once-hectic headquarters are deserted most of the time: Employees come in only once a week, to pay the bills. “We’re not expecting any business until 2015,” Mr. Ismail said, sitting alone in his office one recent […]

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Nigeria: Concerns Mount Over Contract Cost Inflation By Oil Majors

The allegation of contract inflation in the oil and gas industry by oil firms, particularly, international oil companies (IOCs) operating in Nigeria is generating ripples in the sector, THISDAY investigations have revealed. Presidency sources hinted that top officials of multinational oil companies use their connections in the presidency to secure oil and gas contracts at very exorbitant rates, when compared to costs of executing similar projects in other parts of the world. It was gathered that the oil majors often bypass the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to get direct approval from the presidency on multi-billion dollar projects that were hitherto disapproved by the corporation because final costs of their execution were ridiculously high. A Canadian oil company operating in Nigeria was said to have recently submitted a tender for a multi-billion dollar project, for which the cost was far higher than what it takes to execute similar project […]

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EIA: High value of liquids boosts wet gas production

Spurred by relatively high values of natural gas liquids (NGL), company interests have shifted from dry gas production to wet gas production, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s monthly gas liquids report. Gas prices have stayed low in recent years due to increased supply. The Henry Hub spot price averaged $3.73/MMbtu in 2013 and $2.75/MMbtu in 2012, reducing profit margins for many gas producers . NGL prices, as being traditionally linked to crude oil, are set at a significant price premium over pipeline-quality dry gas. According to EIA data, more recently, the gas plant liquids composite spot price —which approximates a value of NGL produced at processing plants—has hovered roughly halfway between WTI crude oil and gas spot prices. This liquids price premium has resulted in a faster growth rate of wet gas production compared with that of dry gas. Liquids extracted from wet gas at processing plants […]

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Venezuela Arrests 243 in Raids on Antigovernment Protest Camps

Security forces arrested 243 people in Caracas on Thursday as they dismantled four protest camps set up in the Venezuelan capital by demonstrators opposed to the government of President Nicolás Maduro, and a policeman was fatally shot in clashes that followed, officials said. In Washington, senators condemned the mass arrests during a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee on human rights violations in Venezuela . The raids broke a period of relative calm in Caracas, where the intensity of the protests had cooled significantly. After the camps were overtaken, groups of people formed barricades and burned trash in the streets. Soldiers and police fired tear gas and plastic buckshot. Officials later said that an officer had been shot and killed.. According to the interior and justice minister, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, National Guard troops and the National Police staged the 3 a.m. raids on the camps, which were located in […]

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Avoid using DOT-111 cars to carry oil, U.S. says

Rail companies operating in the United States should avoid using older DOT-111 tank cars to carry Bakken crude oil, the Department of Transportation said. The department’s Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued a safety advisory calling on shippers offering crude oil from the Bakken area of North Dakota to use tank cars designed with "the highest level of integrity" available. Carriers, they said Wednesday, are called on to avoid using older DOT-111 or CTC-111 rail cars to carry Bakken crude oil "to the extent possible." U.S. regulators in January issued an advisory warning Bakken crude oil may be more prone to catch fire than other grades. An accelerating rate of oil production from states like North Dakota has stressed existing pipeline capacity. Industry officials said rail is taking up the slack, though a series of derailments involving rail […]

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Worker Fatalities Surge in North Dakota Oil Boom: Study

Oil and gas workers in North Dakota are six times more likely to die on the job than their peers in other states as inexperienced workers join the state’s oil and gas boom, according to a report by a labor group. In North Dakota, 104 out of every 100,000 oil, gas and mining workers died of job-related injuries in 2012, according to a report today from the AFL-CIO labor federation. North Dakota had the highest fatality rate at 17.7 per 100,000 workers across all sectors, the AFL-CIO said, citing data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. North Dakota’s petroleum industry employed 40,856 people in 2011, up from 5,051 in 2005, a year before the oilfield expansion began with techniques such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. To support the surge, inexperienced workers have entered the industry, in some cases without proper training, said Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO director of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple